


Do Not Engage

by shauds



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Eddie is not pleased by this, Gen, Jason neglected to tell Eddie he was alive, editing is for the weak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-11 20:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shauds/pseuds/shauds
Summary: Titans Tower is a big place, easy to get lost in, easy to bump into new people. Stephanie bumps into Kid Devil and they both learn some thing new about his old penpal.Eddie's mad he was never told, Jason's surprised Eddie wanted to be told, and Steph is incredibly confused that it's the crimelord she''s protecting.





	1. Do Not Engage

The Titans Tower was, in a word, big. Why they needed so many floors of rooms, Steph could only guess at. Maybe they'd expected more of those kids that had come and gone over the past year to stay, but this time, it was the Titans who were rejected. Or they had some huge parties and needed the place for people to sleep it off afterwards. There was no way of knowing and, as entertaining as the reasons behind it were to think about, it didn't really help any with her current problem.

More than just big, the place was near as twisty as Gotham's back alleys and also like those alleys, not very easy to navigate if one wasn't already familiar with the layout. A really good setup in the case of the intruders the Teen Titans had to deal with every other month, but not so welcoming to guests either. Not that Steph would have ever called them exactly **welcoming** to her per se .

Taking all of that into account, it wasn't entirely Steph's fault that she got lost in the place on her way back to her assigned guest room. What she would, however, take full responsibility for, was that her rush to find that room resulted in her moving a bit too fast, resulted in her not paying enough attention to where she was going, resulted in... this.

Dozens of envelopes and sheets of paper fluttering down the staircase she'd been descending and a very confused... she thought this one was Kid Devil, on his but at the foot of those stairs with a near empty cardboard box in his arms.

"Oh my god I am so sorry." Steph said, hurrying to pick up some of the letters. "I was trying to find my room, and this place was **so** big and I..."

"Wait, wait, wait." He yelled, waving his arms and leaping to his feet and startling Steph into dropping the letters she'd gathered. He flinched at her response. "Sorry, they're just, sort of old and fragile" he said more softly, there was a gentleness to the way he picked up the letters himself, tucking some of the well worn pages into corresponding envelopes they seemed to have escaped from in the fall escaped from in the fall.

"If I'm really careful?" She waved her hands on either side her face. "I got dainty, detective's hands."

"Yeah, sure." He offered her a shy grin, showing off the orange glow that was apparent even through his teeth.

"Cool." Steph replied, glad for the mask that hid at least some of how embarrassed she was and gathered some of the letters, careful as when she'd helped Batman gather evidence as Robin. "Again, so, so sorry. I was a little lost, and I didn't think anyone would be around here."

"Neither did I." He said. "It's kind of why I was taking this route."

"Oh." Steph nodded. "Don't want your friends to get a look at all of your love letters?" If her face had been visible, Steph might have waggled her brows.

Kid Devil snorted and shook his head. "Nah, these are all from a penpal I had when I was a kid." He accepted the stack of letters Steph handed him and slotted them back onto the box.

Steph might have left it at that, thinking he probably just didn't want to get run over by any of his more rowdy teammates like he had been by her. Then the next thing she picked up was a picture. An old polaroid, worn as the rest, of Robin posing as dead in the mouth of that huge t-rex down in the Batcave. The Robin wasn't Tim, and the picture didn't look like it could have been from when the first one was that small, it obviously wasn't Steph herself, and unless there was some other one she'd never heard about, process of elimination dictated it had to be... Oh boy.

"So, just a penpal, huh?" Steph passed him the picture, and looking at it turned his lips up in an amused smile before he tucked in into an envelope. "That's pretty cool, why hide it?"

"People..." he trailed off, looked up at Steph, then quickly away from her, his brows furrowed. "They say bad things about him now, and..." he picked up a few more letters. "he was my friend, I mean, if you asked me, he was cool." That made a little more sense, if Steph had been the Red Hood's penpal when she was a kid, she wouldn't exactly be shouting it from the rooftops either. "I always thought his family would make them stop eventually, but now..." he closed the box and pressed down the no-longer sticky tape along the middle. "I just, don't want to have to hear those thing's again." Now that, and the resentful tone he'd used, it made a little less sense, but it was kind of interesting to get another perspective on the guy. "Want me to take you by the kitchen?"

"Yeah, thanks." Steph brushed some of the dust from the letters off her knees when she stood. "You think they're lying or something?" 

"I think, you shouldn't say stuff like that about someone who can't defend themselves anymore." He held the box carefully, like something precious and locked eyes with her. "And I **know** he wasn't like that and they..." His fingers dug into the box, leaving dents in the cardboard. "They didn't even tell me when he died, I couldn't go to the funeral or anything, I didn't even **know** until after there was a new one, and I waited so long for another letter." Geez, harsh much? She knew Batman was cagey, but really?

"Yeah, I know those guys, they don't do much of the telling-people-things thing." She rolled her eyes, trying not to think about the way it stung to learn that she'd been kept out of the loop, that she'd only be included if she was part of a club that she'd never be let in to. "If it makes you feel any better, they never told me much eith..." Wait, if they didn't tell Kid Devil when Mister Dawn of The Dead was curtain called... Oh no "Bet you uh, would have liked to see him again.

"Well, yeah sure, " his face scrunched up at her question, not in that 'the girl I'm talking to asked a dumb question' kind of look, but this one made her feel almost as bad. **God** they were assholes. "but I'm also kind of glad you know, that he's not around to hear what..."

"Jason Todd is alive."

"What?"

Yeah, maybe she shouldn't have blurted that out like that, but she was in it already, might as well swim deeper. "Your penpal?" Maybe he just didn't know the name, she hadn't until a while ago either.

"I know who he was, but he, is?."

"Yeah he is, crawled up out of his coffin - probably not literally - ," hopefully not literally, "and went Pet Cemetery on Gotham's underworld. "A little too late for Steph, but she had the image she'd gotten from the Batcave of Black Mask making like eggs and scrambling from a rocket launcher and nobody could ever take that away from her.

"And, it's really him?" He sounded, somewhere in the vicinity of hopeful, but there was something else there. 

"I think so?" It sounded like a question, she hadn't meant for it to sound that much like a question. 

"How long?"

"I really don't know much, but a couple years maybe?"

"A couple years!" He yelled, then looked at her for a couple of seconds, unblinking, and his eyes narrowed sharply. "That ass." He shook his head, his lips curled in a scowl that seemed very out of place on his face.

"Listen, I shouldn't have told you, he's..." She sighed and lifted up her face mask to actually let the guy look at her. "I just thought you deserved to know, but he's on Batman's 'do not engage' list, that's the list he put **Joker** on. You know what that means?"

"Can you hold my letters?" He pressed the box into her hands, then pointed down one of the halls. "Kitchen's down that way."

"Hey Kid!" She called after him, but he was already gone. Steph huffed. Batman hadn't been able to find Jason Todd in all this time, and she'd never heard of Kid Devil being some great detective. Then again, she'd never heard of Jason Todd having friends in the hero community either so, that wasn't saying much. Maybe it would be better to tell someone. She felt the weight of the box in her hands, thought of the way he'd held it. Maybe she'd just go after him herself instead. "Do not engage means do **not** engage!"

**000**

There were a lot of times, over the past four years, and even before, that someone saw fit to tell Jason he was going to hell, that they hoped a demon dragged him off. He doubted, **sincerely** that any of those someone's had ever meant it literally.

Even with everything Jason had seen in his lives, of all the thing's he'd thought would happen to him, being tackled off of a rooftop by a very loud, sort of happy, sort of mad, very demonic looking demon guy was maybe at the last. 

"A couple of **years** Jason?!"

The purple girl showing up to separate them afterwards was a very close second.


	2. Nobody Get's Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie's mad he was neve told, Jason's surprised Eddie wanted to be told, and Steph's incredibly surprised that it's the crimelord she's ended up protecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be my fill for dismissed, but it really didn't fit so I'll have to come up with something else for that.

"A couple of **years** Jason!?" Eddie was yelling his hands wrapped around the throat of someone who was supposed to be dead. who he'd thought for years was dead, more to hold him in place make sure that he as there and not about to slip into the night and vanish forever. "You couldn't take a minute to call or send a damn postcard! My number was **listed** a couple years ago!"

Eddie didn't get a reply, he got a sharp pain in his neck and his hands loosening without his consent. "Come on, lets not make the scary murder hobo mad." Spoiler, she'd followed after him and was now grunting as she dragged him away from Jason.

Eddie didn't care about making Jason mad, Eddie was mad, he was madder than he'd been since he'd confronted Dan about Marla, and Jason, - too big, and looking just different enough that if Eddie had passed him on the street he would have chalked the resemblance up to coincidence - Jason didn't get to look up at him like he had no idea what was going on. Before Eddie could think enough about it, before Spoiler had dragged him out of range, he struck out with his fist and got Jason sprawled on the oily Gotham street.

"What did I **just** say?!" She shoved Eddie a couple more feet away.

"I don't care." Eddie said there was blood, close to boiling on his hand and falling from Jason's nose that didn't look quite right in the few seconds before Jason's hands went to cover it. _'There,'_ Eddie thought, _' **Now** he can be mad._'

"You got your shot in, can we go now?" Spoiler said, trying to tug Eddie away.

It took a couple of seconds before Jason did anything but look at Eddie with squinted, still disbelieving eyes. "Eddie?" He asked, his broken nose making him sound a little like he had a cold.

Eddie felt a little bad when he pulled his arm away from her and marched back to Jason instead. "No, it's Red Evil Santa!" He spat back, he had no intention of running, of letting himself be dismissed again like he had years ago when he'd first found out why he wasn't getting letters anymore. He didn't even care if Jason took out one of those guns he had strapped around his thighs and threatened to shoot him like Spoiler had said he would. 

Jason gripped his nose and twisted it into something more like it's original position as he stood. Spoiler put herself between him and Eddie again, looking between them like she wasn't sure which of them she was going have to hold back this time. "The hell are you doing here?

"Kicking your ass for letting me think you were back!" Eddie's hands ached from being balled up too tightly at his sides as he spoke. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to find out you were gone, and then, then I wrote so many letters and I tried to call so many times, but nobody would tell me what happened to you, they wouldn't even talk to me, they just... dismissed me, like, I didn't deserve to know." He felt his eyes growing hot, well hotter, he quickly brushed his arm over them, he didn't need his tears glowing in this darkness. "Like I didn't spend every Sunday for six months waiting in front of the mailbox, like I didn't read every letter I had a thousand times when I found out I wasn't getting another one, because I missed you, and you were friend!" He tried to move closer to Jason, to do what, he wasn't sure, but Spoiler had her hand against his chest, pushing him back again. "I thought you were my friend." He couldn't get his voice to get over a whisper when he spoke over her shoulder. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

"No," Jason averted his eyes, not even a beat of hesitation between his reply and Eddie's question.

"Damn, you really are a bastard." Spoiler spat when Eddie couldn't find his words. "You coulda just shot at us instead and you'da been less of a dick for it."

"I don't have any reason to shoot you right now." Jason shrugged, stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Sorry. Was that all?" He still wasn't looking at them, but at the bright splash of orange paint on the wall, there wasn't anything interesting about it,not interesting enough to take his attention off of someone who'd just attacked him.

"Why?" Eddie asked. "If I don't get to know anything else."

"Not complicated, I just wasn't gonna be told to get lost again." Jason licked his lips, wiped away some more of the blood that had trickled down his face, and watched Eddie, looking for what he couldn't tell or whether Jason found it before he spoke again. "Cause everyone already knew, and I didn't think you'd care anyway, ya think anybody else did?" He scoffed, then cleared his throat, it didn't make his voice any less hoarse. "I was dismissed as the **bad** one before I was even cold in my grave, even the people I thought were my family just replaced me and moved on." He shook his head. "Nobody missed me, and even if they did, they don't want me now, that's my fault, but..." He sighed and scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair, turning it from moderately tidy to a complete mess of curls as he turned back to the all of the building he'd been tackled off of. "Go home Eddie, you wouldn't understand, you wouldn't understand."

"Yeah Jayce, cause it's not like **I** could possibly understand what it's like when your family doesn't want you, and it's all your fault, right."

A flinch, easily visible stopped Jason dead in his tracks, his hand already halfway to his grapple gun. He let out another sigh, longer and wearier than the first, then he spun on his heel and jabbed his finger at Eddie. "That's bullshit and you know it! Your parents are the pair of asscheeks making up the biggest ass in whatever place is at the mercy of them sitting down now, that's **not** your fault."

Eddie could see his eyes now, and now he took note, they were three shades too green from the grey he remembered, but there was no other difference, and there were still streaks glistening on his face..

Eddie reached around Spoiler to grab Jason's outstretched hand and tugged him closer, Jason yelled, started to push away, stopped when Eddie didn't try to strangle him again and let Eddie pull him into a hug, but left his arms hanging by his sides.

"I wouldn't have told you to get lost." Eddie said softly, then winced slightly when he added. "Andm'sorryIbrokeyournose."

"Needed something to clear my head after all those months of universe jumping bullshit."Jason let his head drop to Eddie's shoulder, he returned the hug very briefly, then pulled away. "But listen, we really can't be here right now." He peered out at the darkened buildings across the street.

"Why is there something wrong?" Eddie shifted so he was blocking Jason off from whatever it was he was looking for there.

"It's the Bowery at night." Jason shook his head and stepped out from behind Eddie. "And," he gripped the edges of his jacket and tilted his head, "it's a little awkward with you friend right over there."

Eddie turned quickly to where Spoiler seemed to be trying to melt into a wall. "Right." He chuckled nervously and stepped just outside of Jason's personal bubble, and he thought he head what might have been a 'thank God' from Spoiler's direction. "This is Spoiler, she's the one who told me you were back when she found out I didn't know. She's cool."

"And tagged along to make sure you weren't murdered by the reverse grave robber, huh?"

" **And** she doesn't like it when people talk about her like she 's not here too." Spoiler crossed her arms, and leaned forward, even with the mask covering her face, Eddie could tell she was staring Jason down. "Remind me again which of you I kept from getting murdered tonight, Mister Reverse Grave Robber?"

"Aren't you s'posed to be dead?" Jason asked, bending nearer to her.

"Look who's talking." She scoffed at him.

"Ha." Jason hitched his shoulders and blinked down at her, then back to Eddie. "If you say she's cool."

"Okay, you two don't look like you're going to kill each other any more, can I go now?" She said, rubbing pulling on her hood.

"You don't **have** to." Eddie said. "Right Jayce?" If she hadn't told him, he'd probably never have found out about Jason, and it wasn't fair to cut her out now, especially considering that no one told her things either.

"Actually, we should **all** go now. Bowery. Night." Jason started walking backward down the street. "Come on, there's this place a couple blocks up that wont pay too much attention to either of you."

"Yeah okay." Eddie started following after Jason, then stopped to ask Spoiler, "You coming?"

"I'm already here, so might as well." She shrugged, and fell into step with Eddie. "Long as there's no more strangling."

"I'm still kinda mad, so maybe be on the look out for that." Eddie swung an arm around Jason's shoulder and held up a finger in front of his face. 

"Eddie, I still have a gun." Jason rolled his eyes, but didn't throw Eddie's arm off.

"If you shot me you wouldn't have any friends." Eddie pointed out and Jason sighed wearily.

"Don't worry too much, m'still here to protect you." Spoiler patted his back.

"Y'know, I changed my mind, think Ima just go home." Jason tried to shuffle his way out from between the two of them.

"No your not, you still need to tell me about the universe jumping thing, **hot damn** that's cool." Eddie tightened the arm around Jason's shoulders.

"Good gracious that's a long story." Jason raised his eyes heavenward. "Last time I ever go to a funeral."


	3. Be Back Soon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep coming up with add ons for this thing.

They went for pancakes - smothered in syrup and cream - caught up a little - incredibly awkward with how little either of them were really willing to talk about - and there was no more physical violence involved which was more than could be said of most social interactions Jason tried to engage in. Not that he'd really expected much more violence on Eddie's end, Jason had been more concerned about himself with that, maybe with Spoiler, maybe any of the other costume run-around about Gotham wondering where she and Kid Devil had gone.

"Be back soon," Eddie said when it was over, with a grin that's cheeriness wasn't offset by either fangs it revealed, or the way it literally lit up his face in the alley behind the diner.

"Just go make sure they don't think I mugged you." Jason kept his tone casual was he waved them off.

"Technically, couldn't we kinda say **we** mugged **you**?" Spoiler said, pulling her face mask down now she'd finally finished clearing away the copious amounts of syrup she'd gotten on the fabric. "Attacked you in the Bowery and took your money?" She cocked her head at them.

"Don't you dare."Jason warned, but couldn't find the heat to put behind it.

She chuckled and patted his cheek. "See you 'round McHostage."

That was exactly the story she was going to tell, he knew it, and Eddie wasn't going to refute it.

"I'm not buying you pancakes again." Jason yelled at the fiery... portal? Eddie had opened.

She waved again, her hand slipping away the last of them he saw, and then they were gone. The alley was quiet, cold as Gotham always was on the cusp of another storm. Soon the background noise - cars, sirens, chatter and shouts - rushed in to fill the silence they'd left. It'd been nice while it lasted. Jason tugged up the collar of his jacket against the wind, tucked his hands into his pockets, and started on his way to his nearest heated safehouse.

He got to the end of the alleyway when the ring of fire appeared in front of him again and Eddie came stumbling out. Literally stumbling, he took one step and fell over.

"Gopher!" Jason caught him before he could hit the wet, grimy asphalt. "What the hell?"

"No one calls me tha' 'nymore." He slurred and looked up at Jason with half-lidded eyes, then turned away with and let Jason pull him back to his feet.

"What happened?" Jason asked, circling Eddie, looking him over for injuries.

"Said I'd be back soon." Eddie said, running his forearm over his eyes. "Stop that." He batted Jason's prodding hands away from his head. No obvious signs of concussion, but... "Just been teleporting all day." He planted a hand on his hip and gave Jason a thumbs up. "All good now."

"You sure?" Jason didn't move to far from Eddie, kept his arms out, ready to catch him again juts in case.

"They're my powers, Jayce, I know how to handle them." Eddie jabbed the thumb at his own chest. "So what're we..." He took a step out of the alley and tipped over.

Jason sighed deeply and thanked his paranoia that he hadn't been able to keep from wearing the heat resistant padding under his t-shirt.

**000**

"I swear you used to be smarter." Jason shook his head and kicked the fridge closed, then slid the glass of orange juice across the island to Eddie.

"Wasn't sure I'd find you again." Eddie took a big gulp of juice, and then a bite of toast

>

Jason ignored the sting he felt a at that, folded his arms and leaned against the counter where he would keep a close eye on Eddie. "I meant that **recruitment** drive bullshit." He'd seen some pretty messed up side effects of exhaustion over the years, some particularly nasty one from metas, it didn't hurt to be cautious. "You know what that sounds like, right?"

Eddie sank down a little on the on the chair Jason'd pulled over from the the living room. "It's not like that, a lot of kids need the Titans, and we're really short on members right now, so..."

If it were kids that needed the Titans, the Titans wouldn't need recruitment drives. It wouldn't have a higher turnover rate then the damn Justice League. Jason pressed a hand over the bridge of his nose and held back a sigh. This was an argument he'd had many times, one he'd never won, getting into a screaming match wasn't going to help anything. Eddie had survived getting his torn open, h could teleport, he'd be fine. Jason scooped up the empty glass and brought it back to the fridge for a refill.

"Not like anyone was was interested." Eddie shrugged and accepted the glass, brought it to his lips along with the toast, then stopped halfway through the motion. "Or... Hey, your technically still a Teen, right?"

Jason couldn't stop the laughter that broke out from his chest at that, at the very idea that he would ever so much as consider that, so much as **be** considered, ever. "Not a chance in this or any universe, K.D."

"Was worth a shot."

Eddie said, turning his nose up at Jason. He he popped the last piece of toast into his mouth. "And it's actually **Red** Devil now."

"Well, no one's ever accused you of being a coward." Jason took the plate to rinse the crumbs off it and heard the scraping of Eddie pushing his chair back from the ground. "And is R.D gonna pass out on me again?"

Eddie's chuckle was nervous. "Nah, R.D's good, just needed a boost. Man this is weird."

"Nah, I get attacked by demons every other night."

"I can't even tell of you're joking." Eddie said and hopped up to sit on the counter. "Guess it's not **that** weird anymore, but still, I just never thought, you'd be, you know."

"Yeah." Jason dried the plate and stacked it with the others. "I know." Jason wouldn't have believed it himself if someone had told him at fifteen that this was what he'd be. "I woulda told you, if I'd thought..." Jason pressed a hand against his eyes and huffed.

"M'not mad about that anymore." Eddie was swinging his legs, looking out the window at the stormy city. He was like something out of a B grade horror movie, just like he'd wanted when he'd been a kid, and he was still the most like what Jason remembered out of all of them. "Well I am, I guess, but it's not at you."

"Thanks." Jason ducked his head and stepped around the island for the doorway. "So, we haven't tried to beat the crap out of each other yet, and I have no idea what we do now"

There was a thump of Eddie's feet hitting the floor and he was following after Jason. "I wanted to watch Ballistic: Ecks vs. Server the other night, and Amy kind of looked like she wanted to beat the crap out of me for it."

"You hate that movie."

"How do you **remember** that?"

"Hard to forget when you practically wrote me an essay on it."

**000**

Four odd years would be a long time for anyone. For people who lived like Jason and Eddie, who'd changed as much as they had in that time, it was pretty much an eternity. So much had happened, more than either could have guessed at and a lot that neither of them easily understood. So they talked. 

They talked about Dan and Aunt Marla and the multiverse and the Titans. More about Eddie than about Jason, because whenever conversation turned to the older of the two, he'd find a way to steer it back around. 

The movie played in the background, both of them paying more attention to each other and the bowl of popcorn between them than the screen. Eddie joked about how between the pancakes, the toast and now the popcorn, it seemed Jason was incapable of conversation that wasn't over food. Jason flipped him off and shoved a hand of popcorn in his mouth in lieu of a reply. Eddie brought up the swear jar he and Rose had made use of at the tower, when she'd still been there.

When the movie was over, they swapped it out for something equally bad and put it just loud enough to block out the sounds of the storm that made Gotham at daytime dark as twilight. And then they talked about Twilight and Eddie felt terrible about subjecting Jason to the horror.

"Can't believe you found the vampire hunter world and it's the old-timey one you wanted to stay in." By that point, Eddie was only half on the couch, having slid down lower and lower to the ground over the course of the night h had to look past his shoulder to see Jason. Or maybe not, it actually did sound a lot like _'Extra Credit History Assignments For Fun Jason.'_

"Yeah." Jason had chuckled, only half awake himself and curled up in two thirds of the couch, Eddie suspected it had been a while since he'd slept at all. "Kyle got infected there." He linked his fingers and stretched his hands up and over his head. Eddie rolled his eyes and dragged the bowl of cold, and now too salty popcorn off the couch and onto his lap. " But can hunt vampire's here."

Eddie hummed in agreement and massaged his tired eyes, turned them lazily to the screen where a bunch off teenagers were shrieking very unconvincingly about a witch. "You wanna hunt a vampire?" Eddie slid still further off the couch, and this time Jason's legs uncurled a little to claim the space Eddie had vacated.

"No m'sleeping." Jason yawned and buried his face in the armrest, he looked a lot more comfortable than Eddie, who gave in and let himself fall the rest of the way to the ground. The carpet was soft too, well soft enough, Eddie didn't have the energy to get up and reclaim couch space. "Do it with the Titans."

"Titans don't hunt things." Eddie yawned too, great, he'd caught it from Jason and now he was going to fall asleep too. "We just kind of..." He flopped a hand in circles as the yawn winded down, "Get attacked by supervillains 'n stuff."

"So heroic." Jason scoffed, then he shifted so he was laying on his back, eyes on the ceiling, abruptly tense and nowhere near as comfortable as he'd been a moment ago. "Speaking of, you gonna be heading back soon?"

"No, I don't..." Eddie turned around, so he was kneeling, facing the couch and Jason. "I can hang a little longer."

"Ah." Jason nodded once, scrubbed a hand over his face before folding both arms behind his head and closing his eyes.

"Unless." Eddie bit down on his bottom lip, shifted his gaze quickly to the door and back, something heavy and cold settling on his shoulders. Jason hadn't expected Eddie to be back right after dropping Spoiler back at the tower, he knew that, and then, Eddie had been here for hours already, he knew he could be a little inept at telling when he'd worn out his welcome. "Did you **want** me to leave you alone?"

"No." Jason said, a deep line having appeared between his eyes and his lips set in a frown. "I wouldn't **want** you to go." He rolled his shoulders, a nervous gesture that didn't fit him "Just figured, you had thing's to do, n you'd wanna get back 'fore they knew you were..." He motioned at himself and then around at the apartment. "Y'know."

"I don't." Eddie tucked some strands of hair behind his ear and shifted away from the couch to keep the sudden spike in his body temperature from burning it up. "And I know you don't really thing I'd ditch you for such a dumb reason." He fixed his eyes on Jason and tried to smile, he was good at that. "I swear you used to be smarter." 

Jason finally looked at Eddie, blinked owlishly at him with eyes so wide, Eddie might have thought it was funny if it hadn't made him turn every bit of the carpet he was touching to charcoal. Then Jason snorted and shook his head as he rolled off the couch. "I gotta fire-proof this apartment sometime."

"Yeah, that's a really, really good idea." Eddie winced and shifted away from the carpet he'd destroyed.

"Ima grab the fire-extinguisher, you get another movie going." Jason was gone from the room minutes after the sounds of him rifling through the kitchen came to an end.

The room was too dark to be sure, but when he came back in, Jason's eyes were suspiciously red. When he didn't bring it up, Eddie let himself pretend it was because his friend was short a couple hours too many of sleep.

They didn't do much more talking that night, but that was fine, there'd be plenty more time for catching up on others.

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Teen Titans (2003) where Steph went to the tower as moral support for Tim. It's not that good an issue and kind of feels like it was just written to pit Cassie and Steph against eachother.


End file.
